


Marissa

by Holde_Maid



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 08:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6975562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Holde_Maid/pseuds/Holde_Maid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keep your handkerchief ready. :P</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marissa

**Author's Note:**

> RATING: PG13, I'd think - Allusions from afar is the worst you will come across here, but the concept of death (as well as the show itself) might warrant PG13.
> 
> Disclaimer  
> Apart from two characters of my own design, you'll meet Joe and Duncan in this story. They belong the universes of Highlander: The Series, of which I own NO part whatsoever. Davis/Panzer do. Also, I'm definitely not making any money by writing this, intend neither harm nor infringements of anybody's rights.

dark. Almond-shaped pools of sadness. Duncan MacLeod could not tell what it was that attracted him more, the frailty expressed in her eyes and posture, or the strength in her fit body.  
She wasn’t beautiful. Not in the way people popularly defined "beautiful", at least. But she had the sort of beauty he sought for in a woman.  
Duncan smiled at her.  
She returned the smile, with a hint of sadness around the corners of her eyes. Then she went back to reading her magazine.  
A door opened.  
Duncan’s attention was diverted as a man approached him, resting his weight heavily on a pair of crutches.  
"Joe," MacLeod addressed him in a low voice. "What did the doctor say?"  
Joe Dawson exchanged a wave with the woman with the almond-shaped eyes, told Duncan that he’d be right back and hobbled over to her. They spoke for a few minutes, but soon it was her turn to go in to the doctor.  
While he and Joe left the waiting-room, Duncan asked, "Who was the lady?"  
"Marissa. A friend," Dawson told him curtly, preoccupied with lowering himself into Duncan’s car.  
"Close friend?"  
"Not the one I’ve told you about," he chuckled. "Actually, she’s her flat-mate." He turned to MacLeod and watched him manoeuvre the car out of the parking space with competent care.  
For a moment Duncan looked back at him, and his smile bore a charming hint of shyness. Then he returned his attention to driving.  
MacLeod looked younger than the salt-and-pepper-haired Dawson, by at least a decade. However, he was not. In fact, he was almost 10 times as old – what was it, 408 years now? 410? Duncan MacLeod was an Immortal.  
Perhaps the centuries of experience were the reason for his polite restraint. He was a great friend, and a close friend of Joe’s. Yet he always kept a certain distance, and sometimes he just decided not to let his emotions show. When he did, it was impossible for Joe to guess at what he was thinking or feeling. At the moment it was easy, though.  
"Want me to introduce her to you? I was going to invite them both to a jam session at the bar. You can come and have dinner with us."  
"That would be great," came the Immortal’s satisfied reply. "I’d love that." He paused, then changed the subject. "So, what about your legs? What did the doctor say?"  
"Seems it’s just the skin that is inflamed. From sweat gathering inside the prosthetics or something. Should be fine in a day or two." He grinned. "Mac, when the swelling is gone, I’ll call Marissa and Sondra. You better make sure you got time to come to the bar."  
MacLeod nodded. "I’ll be there."

\+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Two days later, Joe Dawson acted on his promise to call the ladies.  
On the following weekend, MacLeod entered Dawson’s blues bar "Joe’s". His friend, who had been talking to the bartender, came out from behind the counter to welcome him. Dawson led the way to a table at which two women were seated and introduced Duncan to Sondra and Marissa.  
"Nice to meet you," Sondra nodded with a warm smile.  
"Hi," Marissa greeted him. "We’ve met before, haven’t we?"  
Duncan inclined his head and met the gaze of her dark, almond-shaped eyes, as he sat beside her.

\+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Joe had told MacLeod that Sondra was a singer. So since it was jam-session night, their conversation naturally revolved around music for a while. In the end, Joe started to try and persuade Sondra to get up on stage.   
"On one condition," she finally agreed. "You have to accompany me."   
Joe was only too happy to comply.   
When they started haggling over how many and which songs they should choose, Duncan seized his chance. He leaned over to Marissa and asked if she was going to join the jam session, too.   
"No," she declined firmly. "But don’t let that stop you, if you’d like to."  
"Oh, no, no, no," he shook his head. "I’m staying here with you."   
"Look, don’t stay because you feel sorry for me, okay?" Marissa suddenly begged him.  
"Why should I?"  
She rolled her eyes impatiently. "Because of my…" – angrily she slapped the wheel-chair she was sitting in – "…my condition."   
"You sound like you haven’t sat in that chair for a long time."   
His answer surprised her enough for her angry tone to turn pensive. "Well, …" She hesitated. "Yes and no." She looked up and explained, "Like a lover, it used to come and go. And now it looks like we’re unhappily married."   
MacLeod nodded slowly. He didn’t smile, but humour sparkled in his eyes. "Are you trying to shock me?"   
"You’re a strange man, Mr. MacLeod. Normal people are shocked enough by my … vehicle."   
"Why?" he asked with the same innocent curiosity as before.   
This time she thought for a moment before replying. "They feel guilty, I suppose, because they can walk, and I can’t."   
Duncan shrugged, deliberately unconcerned. "There will always be people who can do something you can’t."   
She looked doubtful. "You think so? So, what is it you can’t do?"   
He took a deep breath and gave her question some thought. Then he counted off on his fingers, "I can’t read your thoughts. I can’t make people believe that I can foretell the future, which is a pity sometimes. I can’t have children." He met her eyes again and broke into a grin. "And I can’t remember where I’ve left my pen."   
When she giggled he knew that at last the ice had been broken. 

\+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

He woke early the next morning, as he almost always did. Beside him, Marissa was still sleeping. She looked cute, curled up like this. She was turning him her back and seemed to be fast asleep. He decided he could get up without waking her and did so.   
Gingerly he dressed and stepped over to the kitchen. He put the kettle on the stove, selected his favourite green tea and waited for the water to be heated.   
He looked over at the bed and shook his head. So small a body. A fit body, sure, but so terribly fragile. The body of a mortal; it didn’t heal like his own body did. If she broke a bone, it would never be quite as it had been. If she died of a heart-attack, she didn’t come back to life.   
Only in one thing were they equally vulnerable: If the Immortal’s head were severed, he, too, would die for good. No other death would be permanent for him. For her, any would be. Any danger for her, unlike him, was a real danger.   
And his life was full of that.

The sound of the violently boiling water finally caught his attention. He waited for it to cool down a bit, before giving the tea leaves a very hot bath and spilling the fluid into the sink. He filled the tea-pot again and looked at the kitchen clock.   
3 minutes. He had three minutes to make up his mind. Of course he already knew what he had to do. It wasn’t fair to endanger a mortal without her knowing, and it was too early days to tell her about himself. But how…

When it was time to take the tea leaves out, he still hadn’t decided on the best course of action. He’d just have to play it by ear.  
He carried a cup of tea over to the bed, wondering if he shouldn’t go downstairs for a work-out. Marissa might well be going to sleep for another two hours.   
He set the cup down on the nightstand.   
The slight noise woke her. She lifted her head sleepily and grasped where she was with a start. "Oh God, what have I done?" she muttered in a rather exasperated tone of voice.   
Duncan answered mildly, "Now, that’s a definite first, for a greeting the morning after."   
"Oh." Realising that he stood behind her, she turned to face him. "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… That was not about you."   
He nodded and smiled with mild sarcasm. "It’s okay. Don’t worry. I can take a little criticism."   
"No, I had only promised myself I’d never do that. You know, let myself be whisked off like that, on the spur of the moment…"   
"I persuaded you. I won’t do it again. Promise." Now the first step in the right direction had been made.   
He turned to go and make breakfast.   
"No, wait!" she called, desperate to put things right. "Don’t get me wrong, Duncan, I loved every minute. I did."   
MacLeod stepped closer again. "It’s okay, Marissa." He offered her the cup from the bed stand. "Fancy some green tea?"   
She sighed and accepted. "Yes, thanks." The sadness in her eyes was back again.   
"What will you have for breakfast?"   
"Nothing, thank you. Unless you have any rusk."   
To his own surprise, he did.   
They sat there in silence, sipping tea and nibbling the dry cracker bread and the fruit he had brought over with it.   
Presently she lifted her head. "I’m dying, Duncan." She watched for his reaction, but he showed none. "It’s okay if you’d rather back out."   
"What, exactly, are we talking about?"   
"Multiple sclerosis. The prognosis I got comes down to a slow and ugly death. Oh, and don’t try saying that there must be some cure that’s still in the try-out stage, because I’ve been spending years trying to find something. For some cases, they just can't..." She stopped trying to explain why her case was different from most others and fell silent.   
Duncan frowned. "But I thought Multiple Sclerosis wasn't fatal?"   
Marissa shook her head and spat angrily, "Yeah, not normally!" Obviously her anger subsided as quickly as it had come. She made a hapless little gesture. "It's started to affect my lungs, big time. I’m dying, there’s no way around it."   
"Aging is a slow way of dying, too, Marissa. That’s not it. We all die." Even Immortals died, all the time, because they fought a fight of their own.   
"But…" It was always hard to pronounce. And he wanted to be as truthful as possible. He owed her that much, at least. "My life is a dangerous one. And I don’t want my existence to rob you of a second of the life you’ve got ahead. If you stayed with me, it might."   
She drew her hand through her hair. "You know, that’s the sweetest fairy-tale that has ever been invented to tell a woman off."   
He smiled. "Believe it." He rose from his seat on the bed. "Are you done with this?" He indicated the tea and cracker. On her nod he carried the remainder of their dire breakfast back to the kitchen. Returning, he took her hand and looked into her eyes. "And if you should ever need me, Joe will know how to find me. Don’t hesitate to ask." 

\+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

It was four years later that Joe called MacLeod about Marissa, indeed.

\+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

She looked thinner than ever, tucked into the white sheets of a hospital bed. From time to time they had met at "Joe’s", and he had seen her weight go up and down over the years. He had seen her state get worse, as she lost control over her body step by step. But that had not prepared Duncan for just how frail and dependant on machines she was now.   
"Hey, there’s my fairy tale man!" she greeted him with the closest thing to a bright smile that she could manage. It was a machine that spoke for her, but he could hear it echoed by her own voice in his head.   
As always when they had met, a sweet tension began to fill the space between them. It was an almost physical force that drew him toward her, and he knew that she felt drawn toward him in the same way. Her transformed appearance had not changed that.   
"You called?" he asked with a chivalrous smile.   
She assented, looking around, as if to make sure they were alone. "Can you end it, Duncan?"   
"What?"   
"My life."   
He swallowed hard. "Are you sure?"   
"The hospital is sending me home to die. I don’t want the last bitter drops of it."   
A single tear was rolling down his cheek as he asked softly. "Not even if you spent them with me?"   
She stared at him. "Have you got any idea what that means?"   
Duncan was crying quietly now, but he still hadn’t lost his sense of humour. He smiled through the tears. "It means I get to take care of a baby, after all. A baby with a very grown-up personality. – Come with me, Marissa."   
She nodded. "I’d love to."

\+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

The last two days of Marissa’s life were happy ones.


End file.
